Australian Rugby Star Turns Down Millions To Chase NFL Dream

SYDNEY — One of Australia's brightest rugby league stars is throwing in the towel to chase his childhood NFL dream.

Parramatta Eels star player Jarryd Hayne, who turned down a multi-million dollar contract extension to head to the United States, announced the shock move on Wednesday.

With no experience in NFL and no contract in the U.S., Hayne said in a heartfelt letter to fans he had to give it a shot, even if the odds were against him.

Although rugby league is the sport most similar to American football, both have tackles (downs) and have a focus on try scoring (touchdowns), it is a world away in the level of the overall competition.

Hayne grew up in a housing commission building in the south-western Sydney suburb of Minto where he was raised by his single mum, Jodie. He made his debut with the Eels as a teenager in 2006. Now, at the ripe age of 26 and weighing in at 100 kilograms, he is considered a true stalwart of the game.

"I was probably about to become the highest paid player in rugby league but I'm a kid from Minto," Hayne told the media on Wednesday as he broke down crying.

"I had one goal in life, growing up in the housing commission and not having the easiest transition, and that was I wanted to buy my mum a house. And I did that," Hayne said. "Everything else is a bonus."

In an emotional speech, the double Dally M Medal winner said it was time for him to push himself again.

"I tell people all the time to follow their heart, to challenge themselves, to not be comfortable. Don’t ever do something that is easy, don’t do something that isn’t going to make you a better person or a strong person or something you think you can’t do," he said. "That’s what I am doing. It’s not going to be easy."

This transition to the NFL has never been made by a rugby league player in Australia and Hayne said he realised there would be hard times and dark days ahead.

"There's going to be times when I'm over there with no friends and no family, and I'm going to have to find something a bit more than love and passion, and I know I've got that. I've got that motivation."

"I made a big decision today. Realistically I should have made it 12 months ago, but I guess I didn't have the courage, didn't have the manhood to do that," he added. "Today I do. I know it's going to be tough for some people, but as I stated before, as a person, as an athlete, that's where I want to head."

In July, Detroit Lions running back Reggie Bush came to Australia and met Hayne along with rugby league players. It may have been this moment and the complimentary comments from Bush that pushed Hayne to make the call.

"I think he'd do pretty well actually," Bush told Yahoo!7 Sport. "Because he's quick, he's elusive, he's powerful, he's fast, he has great vision and those are all the things you need to play running back in the NFL."

"I think definitely some of the [rugby] guys would be able to transfer over to American football," Bush said.

It isn't just Bush that is backing Hayne, Australian rugby league players have thrown their full support behind their colleague.

"I mean no offence to the Hayne Plane but there are just too many dudes in America with his size and speed. I am the biggest rugby fan there is, I should absolutely be supporting a rugby player in the NFL, but there is no way, not one way in hell. I hope I am wrong," one wrote.

Another agreed: "He's clearly extremely gifted athletically, but his skills just don't translate to the NFL game."

The only sign recently anything was amiss with Hayne and where his true focus lay, was a visit he made in September to the Seattle Seahawks. In his media conference on Wednesday, he rejected rumours he was joining the Seahawks.

"Our scout down under has been on this for some time now. He is an incredible athlete and a great competitor, which is the stuff we kinda like," he said. "We will see where it goes. I’m afraid to mention anything because I don’t know about the rights and contract issues down there."

"I've always thought it would be cool to recruit down there because there are some great players and it is a great game," he continued. "It's a very physical and demanding game, so those guys have all the same stuff we're looking for in our guys."

Even though Carroll said Hayne may well have what it takes to succeed in the NFL, history says he's fighting an uphill battle.

Tight ends Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates and Jimmy Graham all either were or still are elite NFL players who played basketball in college. But all three were standout football players earlier in their high school or college careers, too, meaning they didn't have to learn the American football basics at the pro level.

San Francisco 49ers fans got excited in 2013 when the team signed Lawrence Okoye, a 6-foot-6, 304-pound freak athlete with negligible levels of body fat who threw discus at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Through two pre-seasons, however, he hasn't been able to make it off the 49ers' practice squad despite prodigious physical gifts.

Okoye stands on the sideline before an NFL preseason game in August.

Australian-born rugby union player Hayden Smith played ever so briefly with the NFL's New York Jets in 2013, but couldn't earn a permanent spot with the team. American Carlin Isles — hyped as the fastest man in international rugby union — briefly trained with the Detroit Lions this summer, but soon returned to his original code. Haloti Ngata is a star for the Baltimore Ravens who played both football and rugby union growing up in Utah.

Multiple-sport stars aren't unheard of in the NFL by any stretch — Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson are perhaps the two most famous ever — but the tricky part for Hayne, as it has been for many others, will be learning American football technique, rules and strategy essentially from scratch. Harder still will be convincing an NFL team to pay him while he does so.

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